Futurama characters are still popular at fan conventions
Animated comedy Futurama is to return to US TV screens with 26 new episodes - seven years after it was axed by Fox.
They will air in 2010 on cable network Comedy Central, which shows repeats and previously commissioned four specials.
Futurama tells the story of pizza delivery boy Philip Fry, who was cryogenically frozen at the end of 1999 before being defrosted in 2999.
Creators Matt Groening and David X Cohen said they were "excited and amazed" the show was returning.
'Passionate fans'
The show, which follows the space-age adventures of Fry, his love interest Turanga Leela, and Bender - a cigar smoking misanthropic robot - originally ran on Fox between 1999 and 2003.
The popularity of the repeats of the 72 original episodes - bought from Fox in 2006 - as well as strong DVD sales for the four feature-length specials have led to the resurrection.
Groening, who also created The Simpsons, said: "We're thrilled Futurama is coming back.
"We now have only 25,766 episodes to make before we catch up with Bender and Fry in the year 3000."
Comedy Central's David Bernath said there remained "a deep and passionate fan base for this intelligent and very funny show that matches perfectly with our audience".
"It's fantastic that we can add brand new instalments of Leela, Fry and Bender's adventures to our existing library," he added.
In 2005, Fox resurrected another animated comedy, Family Guy, which it had cancelled in 2002.

I'll go fetch my virtual rope and quartering hooks...
(Bender is one of the best characters imo but has now been overused enough now that you can generally tell what's going to happen within moments of an ep starting...)

the-mental-one wrote:Let's clarify, Bender was a good character, probably one of the better characters for a time, then he was overused and now he simply isn't funny anymore....IMHO

hes still funnyer than the Simpsons lets get that clear and after 20 years of it its about time it died and that episode of homer jumping that dam gorge on a skate bord so so dam funny such a great episode leat play it over 1000 tiimes cos its so dam funny then follow with Mr Plow them two episodes are just not funny in the slightist